Payload Integration for Space Erperimentation

Space experimentation requires an increasingly complex planning and systems engineering effort to meet the demand for highest precision and reliability of all easurements and observations. A companion paper discusses the interfaces between the scientific/technical areas of space experimentation and the instruments, subsystems and support systems within the spacecraft. This paper deals with the organization and the procedures which are needed to perform the difficult payload integration process for space experimentation. In the course of this process it is necessary to define the experiments completely, to describe all instruments in terms of engineering specifications, to investigate the commonality of equipment, to group the experiments into mission compatible payloads, to specify acceptable loads on all subsystems and astronauts (when present) and to plan for all contingencies during the flight.